During the Windows 10 event last week, Microsoft Corporation revealed some features of Project Spartan, a new browser designed to ship with Windows 10.

These features include the ability to annotate web pages, activate the reading mode and use Cortana for searches. The MSDN blog contains further information to help web developers understand the new features of Spartan and the current January build.

Spartan is designed to provide the same user experience on all Windows 10 devices (PC, tablet and smartphone), allowing the user to interact with mouse, keyboard, touch, gesture, voice and sensors. The browser is reported to use a new rendering engine, originally a fork of Trident, which ran in Internet Explorer, but with many features that ensure greater interoperability.

Lighter browser

Spartan will have several features absent in competing browsers, such as support for digital inking and integration of Cortana, the personal assistant that will be included in the new operating system.

Spartan will be a “lighter” browser with an interface similar to that of Chrome and Firefox, and will also support the extensions. The first innovation that differentiates Spartan from Chrome and Firefox is the support for the stylus and the addition of built-in annotations. Windows 10 users can annotate web pages and send notes to a friend or colleague. The notes will be kept on OneDrive and will be accessible from any browser on any operating system.

Microsoft’s virtual assistant Cortana, competitor to Apple Inc.’s Siri, will replace the search functions offered by Bing. The personal assistant will allow users to open websites using voice commands and display various types of information, such as the status of flights or hotel reservations.

New and old rendering engine

Millions of enterprise websites are designed for Internet Explorer. For this reason, Spartan will use the rendering engine of Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) for legacy support along with a new rendering engine for sites that require the older technologies, such as ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects.

Microsoft has also published pictures of the interface, but the most interesting aspect is probably the new rendering engine.

“Powered by a new rendering engine, Spartan is designed for interoperability with the modern web. We’ve deliberately moved away from the versioned document modes historically used in Internet Explorer, and now use the same markup as other modern browsers. Spartan’s new rendering engine is designed to work with the way the web is written today,” says Jason Weber in the preview blog post, Group Program Manager, Internet Explorer.

The blog post says the Spartan rendering engine (edgehtml.dll) is a new component and separate from Trident (mshtml.dll). The new engine began as a fork of Trident, but has since diverged rapidly over the past many months, similar to how several other browser engines have started as forks prior to diverging. The new rendering engine is also being built with a very different set of principles than Trident – for example: a focus on interoperability and the removal of document modes.

Compatible with Chrome Extensions

Microsoft plans to make Spartan compatible with Chrome extensions to make it more attractive for developers. According to Neowin, Spartan will be able to use Chrome extensions the way extensions have been implemented is nearly identical to that of Chrome, which will make it a simple process for developers to make their extensions work on Spartan.

Updated F12 developer tools

The new browser supports improved SSL handling, better plugin-free video streaming including support for multiple video streams. There’s also support for gamepads so web games running in Spartan can use an Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller. The support of WAV Audio enables native audio apps in the browser. There is also support for the new JavaScript ES6 standard, which is gaining traction with other modern browsers.

Spartan will have updated F12 developer tools that include the updated UI with features like new and improved network tool to capture and debug network traffic with new UX and capabilities, such as auto-start, a content type filter, and error highlighting; async callstacks for events and timers to quickly view the async callstack; and HTML & CSS pretty printing to nicely reformat minified JavaScript in the debugger.

Developers also should expect new features to Spartan in the F12 tools, which will give developers a look into how the browser is rendering their page and how their code is performing.

Image credits: Microsoft, Project Spartan MSDN